


I choose to decide (that I don't regret it)

by camellialice



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, eliot is an unstable boy, quentin is a stable boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 01:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21218549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camellialice/pseuds/camellialice
Summary: Prince Eliot’s plans to inherit his father’s rule are rudely interrupted when his kingdom is invaded. Now he has a choice: marry Queen Fen or give up his crown entirely. This would be a much easier decision to make if he could get certain cute stable boy out of his head…





	I choose to decide (that I don't regret it)

Eliot is about to lose his kingdom.

Technically, it's not quite his kingdom yet. His coronation was supposed to happen next month, on the one-year anniversary of his father's death. But the difference between heir apparent and king seems to be mostly semantics — it's not like the title has kept Eliot from having to do the actual work of running a kingdom.

And really, that's the most frustrating part: Eliot _has _been running the kingdom. Sure, he wasn’t ready to inherit when he did, and sure, everyone, himself included, had expected his reign to be a national trainwreck. He was the prodigal prince who had run away from home, the royal black sheep, shrouded in scandal and rumored (not without reason) to be a philandering libertine. His father’s funeral had been the first time he’d set foot in the castle in five years. So yes, it was a rocky start. But he's spent the past ten months trying, really trying for the first time in his life, to learn how to be a good king. He never even wanted this job and it strikes him as highly ironic that, just as he was coming to terms with everything, he's about to lose it.

"I'd like to make you an offer," says Queen Fen. She's not at all what he expected, surprisingly chipper and apologetic for someone who invaded his kingdom and overwhelmed all his forces in under a week. "I like you. I think we could make a good team."

"What kind of a team?" Margo asks. Margo is the reason he has survived any of this. She’s been the one pushing him forward, refusing to let him give up, knowing what to do even when he feels totally lost.

Fen turns to face her. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

Margo levels her with a scathing look, an expression of I-don't-care-if-you-live-or-die-but-I'd-prefer-the-latter. Eliot feels a surge of gratitude to have her here, by his side on what is surely the worst day of his life.

"Lady Margo," she says, her voice ice. "Chief advisor to Prince Eliot."

(Tick Pickwick makes a small nose of protest. Eliot glares at him.)

Fen lifts her chin and says, "I see," and for a moment Eliot glimpses something frightful in her after all. But then she smiles and it dissipates. "I'm planning to merge our two states," she explains. "If you're willing, I'd like for us to rule them together. You'll get to be king after all, and it will give me more legitimacy among your people."

"Like what?" Eliot asks. "Shared custody?"

"I was thinking more like marriage," she says.

Eliot's brain freezes.

"I get that it's a big decision," she says gently. "Think it over. I'll give you three weeks."

Eliot's not good at decisions. It doesn't help that this is the biggest one he's ever had to make. He spends hours discussing it with Margo (and, grudgingly, Tick, although after the first hour they kick him out of the room for being too annoying).

Eventually he needs to clear his head, so he decides to go for a ride through his kingdom, to survey the stakes of his choice.

"Um," says the stable boy. "I'm not sure you can do that." He’s blushing and won’t look Eliot in the eye. Under different circumstances, he’d be adorable.

"I'm the fucking prince," Eliot points out.

"Right--um, Your Highness," the stable boy says. "Sorry. It's just, Queen Fen said no one should leave the palace grounds without her permission."

"Are you kidding me?" Eliot groans. She hadn't mentioned she was putting him under house arrest. Christ.

"Sorry," the stable boy repeats. "it's just awkward, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to listen to. I don't really want to piss her off, though, in case she does take over."

"She already has," Eliot mumbles, and rubs his temples. "Okay. Compromise. Can I ride in the palace gardens?"

The stable boy goes and does all the necessary preparations (whatever that entails, Eliot's equine knowledge is a bit limited) and comes back with a horse. It’s a very large horse. Are all horses that big?

"Everything okay?" the stable boy asks, watching him carefully.

"Fine," says Eliot, because he's feeling emasculated enough without admitting that he's intimidated by a horse.

"No offense, but are you sure you know how to ride? It's just, I've never seen you here before."

Eliot doesn't know whether to be amused or offended by the cheek of this guy. It’s been a long time since anyone besides Margo spoke to him like this.

"I'm the prince," he repeats emphatically, in case the stable boy hadn't heard him the first time. "I had my first riding lesson when I was two."

The thing is, though, he hasn't actually ridden in years. He figured it would be easy, instinctual, but he grips the reins and realizes that he has no confidence in his ability to keep the horse from bolting off to the boondocks. It is—and Eliot truly cannot stress this enough—a _very _big horse. And it certainly seems to have a far better idea of what it’s doing than he does.

The stable boy seems to recognize the panic in his eyes but is wise enough not to comment on it for once, and takes the lead rope to guide the horse through the gardens. It's a laughable downgrade from the gallop through the countryside Eliot had originally envisioned, but whatever. Realistically, that probably would have killed him.

Even with this arrangement, however, he's quite done by the time they reach the westernmost end of the garden. The horse's gait is bouncy and the saddle's chafing him in places he doesn’t like to be chafed, so he decides to dismount.

"Are you done? Would you like me to go?" the stable boy asks.

"It's fine, you can stay," Eliot says, because he doesn't want to be alone, and also because he's not sure he could even find his way out of the labyrinthine garden on his own. "I just need to stretch my legs."

They walk in silence for a bit, the three of them. Then Eliot, emboldened by the relative freedom of talking to a complete stranger, decides to ask advice.

"So," he begins, "hypothetically, if you had to choose between doing something important that you really didn't want to do, or running away and abandoning all your responsibilities, what would you do?"

"You're talking about whether or not to marry Queen Fen?" the stable boy asks.

"Yeah." Being vaguely discreet is not one of Eliot's strong suits.

"Well," the stable boy says, actually considering. "Do you not want to marry her just because she's a stranger, or is it something else?"

"I mean, she did invade my kingdom," Eliot points out. He's still very much put out about that, even if everyone else seems to have moved past it and on to problem-solving mode. "But also, I don't know." He pauses. "Growing up royal, you kind of always know that marrying for love isn't really on the table. It's always going to be some stranger or another. She's just... not my cup of tea, when it comes to strangers. I'm actually not much of a tea drinker at all."

"Ah." The stable boy nods.

“I prefer coffee.”

“I get it.”

“By coffee I mean men.”

“No, I understood.” The stable boy’s mouth quirks up into a small smile. "So what happens if you don't marry her?"

"Bye bye kingdom," says Eliot glumly.

"But. Do you actually want to be king?"

Eliot stops in his tracks. What kind of a question is that? "I've been preparing for it my whole life," he says.

"Sure," says the stable boy, "but do you want it? Like, if you had a choice – and I guess you kind of do – would that be what you most wanted to do?"

Eliot doesn't know what to say. No one has ever asked him this before. There were years and years where he had desperately wished someone would, just so he could shout "No!" and run off into the night, a free man. But it's harder to answer now, after he's spent so much time resigning himself to fulfilling his duty.

He starts walking again, in silence this time, and the stable boy follows, an unsettlingly reassuring presence at his side. It occurs to Eliot that there’s something really nice about spending time with him, and he’d quite like to do it again, although perhaps without an enormous equine monster hovering behind them.

They've reached the garden gate again, and there’s an excuse, at least, to avoid having to craft an answer to his question.

"Stable boy," Eliot asks, "do you have a name?"

"Most people do, yeah," he says, smiling. "It's Quentin."

"I've made a decision," Eliot says. "I accept your proposal. Let's get married."

Fen smiles and stands up. She crosses over to him, reaches up rests a hand on his cheek. "That's what I hoped you'd say," she whispers.

He leans down and kisses her. Her lips are soft and she wraps her arms around his neck. His hands run down her back, and it's firmer than he expected, more muscular. Her thumb traces circles behind his ear and the pad of it is rough, calloused.

Eliot pulls back from the kiss and opens his eyes. Standing in front of him is not Fen, but Quentin, the stable boy.

“Come home with me,” Quentin murmurs, and Eliot wakes up.

("What do you think it means?" He asks Margo. "is it, like, a metaphor for something?"

"No," she says.)

Eliot’s drinking in his father’s study because — well, at this point it’d be easier to list reasons _not _to drink. He chose this location because there’d be fewer people, more privacy, in this wing of the house, but he already regrets it. Everywhere Eliot looks there are reminders of him: his chair, his desk, his seal, his letters, his handwriting. And also a giant fucking portrait of the old man himself.

When he looks down at the dusty carpet, he is ten years old again, memorizing the pattern of woven ivy while his father’s shouted words wash over him. Even now, slouched over a glass of brandy in this armchair, Eliot can almost feel his father looming over him, his face set in a grim expression of silent fury.

The king is dead, long live yada yada.

“Do you mind company?”

Eliot looks up and there’s Queen Fen, standing in the doorway. He can’t imagine why she’s here but she’s already sauntering in, pulling the desk chair by the fireplace in order to sit across from him.

“Hello,” Eliot says.

She smiles. “Hello.”

He watches her. She raises an eyebrow.

“Are you going to offer me a drink?”

“Sure,” says Eliot, but doesn’t move.

She pours herself a glass anyway. “I wanted to talk to you, outside of the throne room. Person to person, no politics.”

A small laugh slips out of Eliot’s mouth. “No politics?”

“Well, nothing official,” she says, and refills his glass for him. “I wanted to apologize. For all of this.”

“Really?”

“I’m not withdrawing,” she clarifies. “And I stand by everything I did, everything I’m doing. It’s for my people. But I’m sorry it had to be you.”

“Oh,” says Eliot, and sips his brandy. “It was kind of a low blow, you know, invading not even a year after my dad died.”

She winces sympathetically, but says, “It was strategic. You were vulnerable.”

(And fuck, she’s sure right about that.)

“I’m just saying,” Eliot shrugs. “You’re lucky I didn’t like him, or you’d be in big trouble.”

Fen laughs, a real laugh.

“Why, though?” Eliot asks, because he can’t think of a better question. But Fen seems to know what he means.

“For my people,” she answers. “No one cares about us, just a little island off the coast of Fillory. But there’s been a famine, and our supplies are running low, and no one will come to our aid because no one ever remembers we exist. I’ve done all I could but we needed a bigger profile, more power. Fillory’s power.”

To be entirely honest, _Eliot_ hadn’t really known about them until Fen arrived. He has vague memories of the island being mentioned, taught to him at some point, but, like Fen said, it had never seemed important.

He watches her, the flickering firelight dancing shadows across her face. Her chin is set and there’s a steely glint in her eyes, but she’s so young. She can’t have been in power that long. Yet already she’s taken his castle and holds his country in the palm of her hand. She must have a brilliant military mind, or an indestructible dedication to her people, or both.

Eliot admires her, and feels a flash of envy, a tinge of guilt. She’s the sort of ruler he was supposed to be. She would have made his father proud. 

“The marriage thing, though?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I don’t want it to look like a straightforward takeover. I don’t want other countries worried, I’m not trying to build an empire. I just want to merge with Fillory. A marriage seems the neighborly way.”

“A little more intimate than neighborly.”

“I’m not leaving,” she says, gently but firmly, and leans forward. “But it’s your choice. If you don’t want to marry me, I won’t take it personally. This is only political for me. But I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

Fen drains her glass. She stands up as if to leave but then pauses, pivots back to him. “One more thing,” she says. “Lady Margo.”

“What has she done now?”

“No, it’s a question. What– Who is she?”

Eliot sighs, lets his head fall back into the chair. How to summarize Margo? “My lifeline,” he breathes out.

“Oh– oh.” Fen bites her lip, looks down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Eliot’s thoughts catch up with him, and he quickly corrects, “No, no, not like that.” He rubs his forehead. “I’m… unattached.” No obstacles to marriage here.

He stares into the fire and tries not to think about why Quentin’s face had popped into his head when he said that. Behind him he hears Fen walking away, the click of her shoes echoing against the castle floor.

“Slacking on the job?”

Quentin jumps and the book slips out of his hands. He looks up to see Eliot standing over him and goes beet red. “Sorry, sir,” he whispers.

“Don’t call me sir,” Eliot says. At least not here. In bed, maybe, but not in a stable. “Besides, I think the proper term of address is ‘Your Highness.’”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” A faint smile starts to bloom on Quentin’s lips, but he suppresses it. “Do you want to go riding again?”

God, no. But he really should have invented a better excuse before coming out here. “I’m inspecting the grounds,” he says, and hopes he can sell it with his usual panache. “Making sure everyone’s working hard, not wasting time with books, and all that.”

“I didn’t know that was a princely duty, Your Highness.”

“It’s a kingly one. I’m practicing.”

“I must have missed all of the previous kingly inspections, Your Highness.”

“You can stop calling me Your Highness.”

“Are you sure? I’ve heard it’s the proper form of address.” Quentin’s smirk is unquenchable now. Eliot wants to kiss it off of him.

Eliot should not be here. He should be making the single most important decision of his life right now. He should not be flirting with stable boys.

“So, you like to read then?” Eliot asks.

Quentin picks his book up off the ground and brushes some straw off of it. “Maybe.”

The rational part of Eliot’s brain begs him to go back to Margo, to make that big decision. But instead he makes a smaller, foolish one.

“Do you want to see something?”

“Uh,” comes Quentin’s voice, and Eliot turns around to see him hovering at the doorway, foot suspended nervously over the threshold.

“What?”

“It’s so–” Quentin trails off and shrugs.

Eliot sighs in exasperation. “It’s just the back door. It’s not even the big fancy entrance. Get over it.”

“Are you sure I’m allowed?”

“I’m the fucking king, Q. Or, I might be. Come on.”

Quentin ducks his head nervously. “I’ve never been in the castle before,” he confesses.

“Eh, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Eliot says, and ushers him in.

It might be a problem if he ever gets to be king, but Eliot is way more familiar with the back corners of the castle than the official parts of it. He used to sneak around here when he was a kid, visiting the kitchens for afternoon snacks or to avoid his father. This is the route he took out of the castle the night he ran away.

He leads Quentin up the spiral staircase, into the east wing, to the big oak doors. He very purposefully does _not _look behind him at the disgustingly enormous portrait that hangs across from their destination. The last thing he needs is his father ruining this moment, too.

(Note to self: if he does get to be king, he needs to make sure there are at least 75% fewer portraits of his father haunting the place.)

“What is this?” Quentin asks.

Eliot waggles his eyebrows. “The royal library,” he says and swings open the door.

It’s an impressive room—or at least, a room that once was impressive and has the capacity to be so again. Sunlight streams in, filtered by stained glass windows, and dapples a long wooden table laden with unshelved books. There’s a balcony running along the walls with even more bookshelves and little reading nooks. Eliot thought it would be perfect for a nerd like Quentin, but as he looks at it now he starts to feel self-conscious about its current state of disrepair.

“It’s a little dusty,” he admits apologetically. “No one really goes in here. My father didn’t have time for books and, well, I chose less academic means of rebellion.”

Quentin nods but doesn’t tear his gaze from the stacks around him. His jaw is slightly agape, and he looks like he’s fallen in love. Eliot almost feels like he’s intruding on an intimate moment.

He coughs, and says, “Anyway, you can come here whenever you like. No one else does. I’ll tell the guards to give you full access.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Quentin breathes.

“I am begging you, please call me Eliot.”

Quentin turns to him, eyes full of wonder. “Thank you, Eliot,” he says, heartfelt and sincere, and it’s too much for him to take.

“It’s nothing,” Eliot chokes out, and flees.

That night Quentin drifts into his head, into his bed, under the sheets with his legs wrapped around him. He cradles Eliot’s face in his hands and tucks a loose curl behind his ear. His touch is more intimate, more real, than any dream Eliot’s ever had.

“It could just be the two of us,” Quentin whispers, and tilts Eliot’s head towards him. His breath ghosts Eliot’s lips, the specter of a kiss suspended in the space between them. “Come home with me.”

Eliot leans in to close the gap but the moment is shattered by the sound of curtains being ripped open. Light crashes into the bed and there stands Eliot’s father, staring down at them, furious.

Eliot doesn’t tell Margo about this dream. He decides it’s a little too on the nose.

A week passes. Margo spends almost all her time now shut up in the council room with Fen.

“We’re in negotiations,” she tells Eliot as she swipes two mandarin oranges from the table.

“What are you even negotiating, Bambi?” Eliot asks, but she’s already pressed a kiss to his cheek and disappeared.

So he wanders about, trying to feel useful, and when that doesn’t work he goes to the library.

He’s started reading. He tells himself it’s because his own education was cut short (by himself, by running away at 17, by deciding to spend six years living large with Margo instead of learning to be someone he wasn’t). He tells himself it’ll help him make his choice when the time comes (he only has one week left). He tells himself it’s for his own betterment. But the truth is that he just really likes being able to spend quality time with Quentin in a room that doesn’t reek of horse shit.

And nearly every day he gets to see that shy smile, those puppy eyes, the quirk of his head when Quentin is attempting to puzzle something out. If his mind strays from his reading, if he spends more time thinking about the curve of Quentin’s jaw than his real issues, well, who could blame him?

They trade stories, too. Eliot regales Quentin with tales of his misadventures with Margo during the Runaway Years. Quentin tells him about his family, his father’s pub in the town just outside the castle.

“It’s called the Three Bears Inn,” says Quentin, carefully uncreasing a dog-eared page. “Have you ever been?”

Eliot racks his brain and comes up with nothing. “I haven’t spent much time in town,” he admits. “Or, not that town, at least.”

Quentin hums. “Maybe I’ll show you sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Eliot says, and he means it. “Whenever I’m freed from my house arrest.”

“I don’t think it counts as house arrest when you live in a huge castle,” says Quentin, and Eliot harrumphs.

Eliot dreams of Quentin. He dreams of laughing with him, of going out drinking with him, of touching his hand, of touching his lips. He dreams of Quentin in his lap and under him.

He dreams that Quentin presses their foreheads together, holds tight to the back of his neck, and whispers, soft and urgent, “What do you want?”

When Eliot wakes up, he stares at the canopy over his bed for a long time. He lets dream-Quentin’s words ring in his head, over and over, until they stop sounding like words at all.

The problem is that Eliot has spent his entire life searching for what he wants and he’s still not certain he’s found it. The problem is that Eliot has always been told that he doesn’t get to want, and he’s starting to understand why. The problem is that responsibility means putting the wants of others before your own.

Eliot closes his eyes and treasures the dissipating sensation of Quentin’s hands on him. He tries to fossilize the dream kiss in his memory before it slips away. Then he stands up and crosses over to his desk. He scribbles a quick letter and gives it to an attendant to deliver to Fen. It says:

_ I’m in. Let’s do this. - e _

Margo storms into his room less than an hour later, a human hurricane. “What the fuck is this?” she demands.

“A scrap of paper?”

“A _note_!” she screeches. “You sent her a _note_?”

“Did she not get it?”

“Oh, she got it,” Margo fumes. “She got it and she showed it to me. What were you thinking?”

“Well, Bambi,” starts Eliot. “I thought I’d marry her.”

“And you didn’t think to consult with me?”

“You seemed a little busy.”

“Running your kingdom, dickwad!”

It occurs to him that this is their first big fight. He doesn’t want to fight with Margo. But he also doesn’t want to have to think about this a second longer. He’s resigned himself to marrying Fen and he can’t bear to spend any more time agonizing over other options he’ll never have.

So Eliot just purses his lips and looks away. Margo slumps against the wall.

“Why are you doing this?” Margo asks.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“Says who?”

“It’s what my father would want.”

“He’s dead! He doesn’t get to run the kingdom, to run your life, from the grave.”

“I can’t–”

“No! Shut up!” Margo barks. “He’s gone. Stop using him as an excuse. Grow up and think for yourself for once.”

Eliot takes a deep breath, tries to slow his racing heartbeat. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Margo glares at him. “Well then, you’re shit at it.”

“Why shouldn’t I do this?” he asks.

“Because it’s a stupid idea! Because it’ll be the biggest mistake you’ve ever made!”

“Are you speaking as my advisor, or as my friend?”

“Both,” she says. “As your advisor, this is a terrible political decision. As your friend, well, you _know _she’s not the person you want to marry.”

“See, I don’t think you’re speaking as either,” Eliot says, more spiteful than he needs to be. “I think you’re speaking for yourself. I’ve seen the way you look at her, Bambi, the way the two of you conspire behind closed doors, and I think you just can’t stand to see anyone else be with her.”

Margo flushes. “Don’t pretend_ you _have feelings for her. And don’t pretend you don’t feel anything for Quentin. I know you too damn well to fall for that.”

“Don’t pretend you know me better than I do,” Eliot snaps.

“Fuck you,” Margo snarls. She balls up the note, throws it to the floor, and sweeps away. Her words sting, but everything else already hurts so much that Eliot barely flinches.

Margo pauses briefly at the door and turns around. “The problem isn’t my heart getting in the way,” she says. “It’s yours. It’s that you won’t fucking listen to it.”

If Eliot had allowed himself to truly hear and acknowledge anything Margo had just said, he’d have known better than to go to the library to cool down. But he’s too angry to think straight, and his primary thought is that he’s not going to let Margo’s words dictate his decisions anymore. So he goes to the library.

And there’s Quentin, and he looks up with ecstatic delight from the book in front of him, and says, “Did you know you have a first-edition copy of the first novel ever written in Fillory?”

Eliot doesn’t respond, just lets his wounded heart absorb some of the joy radiating off Quentin. And then a thought occurs to him, and he asks, “Do you want to be my Royal Librarian?”

Quentin’s jaw drops. “Are you kidding?”

Eliot shrugs. “This place is a mess, and someone’s got to get it in order. Besides, you don’t even like the stables, do you?”

“That would be, like, a dream come true!” Quentin says, and his beaming smile makes Eliot feel warm again, like everything will be alright, like he hasn’t just possibly ended his longest and greatest friendship.

But then Quentin’s smile fades a bit, and he asks, “But wait, can you even appoint me? Aren’t you losing the castle in a week?”

“No,” Eliot says, and it feels like a confession. It is a confession. “I’m not.”

Quentin’s smile is gone entirely, and with it slips away the last of the warmth Eliot had just felt. “So you’ve decided,” Quentin says.

“Yes.”

“You’re marrying her.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Silence stretches out between them, long and painful, and Eliot desperately wishes that just one person in this fucking kingdom would be happy for him, would tell him he’d made the right decision.

And Quentin, despite his new position, looks like he’s been kicked in the gut, and Eliot hates that he’s responsible for that, and he wishes he could make the expression go away. In retrospect, he really should have waited to give the job offer until after the bad news.

Instead all he has left is this: “Do you want to come to an engagement party tomorrow night?”

“Sure,” Quentin shrugs. “I guess if I’m the Royal Librarian I should start attending royal functions, right?”

“Yeah,” says Eliot, and he still feels like shit, so he leaves Quentin to his novel.

He pauses in the hall outside the library and stares at the enormous portrait of his father. It’s twice life size and makes him look a lot more impressive than he ever did when he was alive.

“What else do you want from me?” Eliot whispers. “Surely this has to make you happy, at least?”

He waits, but the portrait gives him nothing. Bastard.

Margo doesn’t show at the engagement party.

But it’s fine, Eliot thinks. She doesn’t need to be here. It’s just a party. It doesn’t matter that this is the first party since childhood that Eliot has attended without her. She’ll have to be there at the official engagement ceremony tomorrow morning, anyway.

And it’s a fine party. Well, it’s a fantastic party, because Eliot has thrown it, but his own experience of his party is… fine. He mingles and makes pleasantries with a bunch of aristocrats that he never really liked. He spies Quentin on the fringes of the party but doesn’t know how to approach him, doesn’t know if he can.

He hangs out with his bride-to-be. Fen has a guarded edge to her at the start of the party, and watches him with wary eyes. But as the night goes on she gradually relaxes, starts to make jokes. She’s funny. Eliot likes talking to her. She’s not the worst person to have to spend the rest of his life with.

But he is going to have to spend the rest of his life with her.

Eventually Eliot escapes to the courtyard. He crouches behind a rosebush and wraps his arms around his head, breathing deeply on counts of 3, in out, in out. When he starts to feel calmer, less shaky, he straightens up but still can’t bring himself to go back into the party. So he sits on a cold stone bench and stares up at the night sky.

“Found you.” Quentin’s just come around the corner and he’s smiling shyly. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” says Eliot, and doesn’t even believe himself. “Just, you know, preparing myself for the joys of matrimony.”

Quentin’s face falls. “Right,” he says, and looks away.

Eliot doesn’t know what to say, but he also realizes (to his surprise) that, even without anything to say, he still wants to talk to Quentin. There’s no one else in the world he could stand to talk to right now, but somehow being here with Quentin, despite the awkwardness, makes him feel stronger. Surer.

“How’s the library?” Eliot asks.

“It’s good. It misses you,” says Quentin, and then adds with a grin, “Your Highness.”

Eliot groans and Quentin giggles. He giggles a lot.

“Are you drunk?” Eliot asks.

“No,” says Quentin. And then, immediately, “Maybe.”

Eliot’s first instinct is to walk him home. But then he remembers that he can’t leave his own engagement party, and also that he has no clue where Quentin lives.

“Come on drunky, you can stay in one of the guest bedrooms tonight,” Eliot offers, and starts to guide Quentin forward with the gentlest touch on his elbow. 

“I need to tell you something,” says Quentin. “A secret.”

Eliot’s heart skips a beat but he keeps his voice steady, his eyes fixed forward. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

But Quentin stops in the path, and he grabs Eliot’s hand with his own.

“Hey,” he says.

“Quentin–” Eliot starts, but he does not finish his sentence, his thought, because Quentin is kissing him. His mouth is on Eliot’s and his hands are snaking their way around his neck and this is actually real, not a dream, so very real and suddenly

Eliot is seventeen years old. 

He’s just ordered a drink for the first time in his life. He’s hunched in the corner of the pub, heart still racing with adrenaline. No one’s looking at him. He exhales slowly. He’s made it.

“What are you doing here?”

A boy slides into the seat across from him, and for a paranoid moment Eliot thinks he’s been recognized. But the boy just cocks his head and continues, “This is my dad’s pub. I know all the regulars and I’ve never seen you here before.”

Eliot takes a swig of his beer. It’s dreadful and thrilling at the same time. The truth is that he’s here because it was the first pub he saw when he reached town. He’d never had beer before, he’d wondered what it was like (the answer: disgusting but not altogether disappointing), and the Three Bears seemed as good a place as any to try.

“It’s a questionable business model,” he says instead, “asking customers what they’re doing here.”

“I don’t ask all the customers,” the boy says, his fingers tapping against the table. He’s nervous.

Eliot’s first thought is: he’s beautiful. His second thought is: the prince shouldn’t flirt with strange boys in a pub.

His third thought is: nobody knows I’m the prince tonight.

“So. What’s your name?” the boy asks.

“I don’t think I should tell you,” Eliot says honestly, before he can think it through. He puts on his best smirk, hoping it’ll make his answer seem flirtatious rather than cagey.

It doesn’t work, and the boy looks away. “Sorry. I’m bothering you.” He stands up.

“No,” Eliot blurts out, and grabs his wrist. “Wait. Stay. Keep me company.”

The boy looks down at where Eliot’s hand meets his arm. Eliot himself feels like his hand is burning.

He’d just wanted a drink, just one drink, to catch his breath before he continued on to Margo’s. He can’t let himself get distracted; if he’s still in town by morning he’ll never be let out of the palace again. But there’s something about this boy, something he can’t possibly explain.

“Do you want to step outside with me for some fresh air?” Eliot asks, as confidently, as innocently, as he can muster.

There’s a pause and Eliot thinks he’ll say no, but then the boy takes Eliot’s hand in his and says, “There’s an alley around the back. I can show you.”

When Eliot was thirteen years old, he’d kissed the gardener’s son and gotten caught. The whole family had been dismissed and his father had locked him in his room for three weeks. Ever since, even at balls, he’d only been allowed to dance chastely with the aristocrats or princes or princesses whose company his father had pre-approved. His only other kissing experience had been Margo (whom the king had never figured out how to object to), when the two of them would sneak up to his room at the end of the night with a bottle of wine stolen from the kitchen.

But now he’s standing outside with a beautiful boy he’d met in a pub, who’s looking up at him with big wide eyes.

“Can I kiss you?” Eliot asks, raw, unfiltered.

“Please,” the boy says, and smiles.

Eliot twists his hands in the boy’s long brown hair and ever so gently lowers his face to his. The kiss is gentle, ever so soft, like the quiet dissipation of a spell.

And then the boy clenches Eliot’s lapels and opens his mouth and for the first time in his life Eliot tastes real freedom, real joy. It’s the best thing he’s ever felt.

He backs them against the wall and presses one hand against the brick, just above the boy’s ear, bracing himself as he kisses him deeper and deeper.

“Who are you?” the boy gasps between kisses, but Eliot swallows his questions, slides his free hand down his back, makes the boy groan at his touch. Eliot doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t want to have to be Eliot right now.

The boy pulls away from his mouth, panting, and starts pressing little kisses down Eliot’s neck. Eliot shivers under him.

“Come home with me,” the boy whispers, and Eliot freezes.

He’s supposed to go to Margo’s. If he doesn’t send his father a message from her house tomorrow there will be a kingdom-wide search for him, and it would ruin the lives of everyone involved if he were found in this boy’s bed. He can’t let himself get distracted, not even by lips this soft, by eyes this big.

But god, he wants to. His skin already feels like it’s on fire, aching to stay as close to this boy as possible. He wants to keep kissing him. He wants to hold him and be held. He wants to watch him unravel in his arms. He wants in a way he’s never been allowed to want before.

The boy cups the back of Eliot’s neck with one hand and presses their foreheads together. Eliot can feel his breath against his lips and has to hold himself back from falling forward into a kiss. The boy tucks a stray curl behind Eliot’s ear. His eyes are still blown wide with lust but there’s a softness there, too, that Eliot finds just as intoxicating.

“Come home with me,” the boy whispers again and

so does Quentin, still clinging to Eliot’s neck. “Remember? The night we met?”

Eliot stands frozen. His arms hang limply at his sides, afraid of reaching for Quentin, like he might get electrocuted at the touch. 

“It’s fine that you don’t remember,” Quentin continues to mumble. He’s babbling drunkenly and Eliot’s brain can’t keep up. “I don’t know why I hoped, even after I realized who you were. I think about it all the time now, and I wonder... But you probably met a lot of guys in pubs, huh? I know it wasn’t, like, special or anything. And you left, so.”

Eliot remembers. He remembers how hard it was to leave, to drag himself away from this beautiful boy, to press one last desperate kiss to his lips before he left. And he summons that strength again, and he peels Quentin off of himself and squeezes his hand.

“You’re drunk, Q,” he says, as gently as he can, and Quentin wilts.

He brings Quentin to the nearest guard and tells her to put him up in a spare room, to make sure he gets to bed safe.

Then he goes back to the courtyard and sits alone on the bench for another hour.

The next morning Eliot comes to the throne room for his big day and does his best to sweep into the room with his usual grandeur. Fen is already waiting for him, sitting on the throne that definitely should have been his. He barely even hears as his presence is announced, just moves automatically to the dais to kneel before her in deference. He didn’t get any sleep at all last night. Not out of guilt or indecision, simply because everything felt too much for him to turn any of it off.

Out of the corner of his eye he spies Margo, which should have been comforting, except she won’t look at him. She’s in her official position, ostensibly there for his sake, but he knows it’s all show. He can see fury quivering in the straightness of her spine and wishes he could talk to her, but knows he can’t. It’s fine, he tells himself. This will be hard enough whether or not he has her support. He’ll have to manage this without his Bambi. There’s a lot of things he’s going to have to learn to manage.

“Your Majesty,” he begins, addressing Fen with the clearest voice he can muster. He can’t let himself waver now, not when he’s finally made his decision.

But there’s a commotion, and Eliot turns just in time to see Quentin burst into the throne room. A guard, hot on his heels, skids to a halt behind him and grabs his arms.

“Sorry, Your Highness,” the guard pants. “He said it was urgent, and we couldn’t stop him.”

Quentin ignores him entirely, undisturbed by the guard’s grip. His eyes are fixed on Eliot’s. “Don’t marry her,” he begs. His voice is hoarse, serious. “Please, Eliot. Don’t.”

Eliot flicks a glance of apology to Fen and steps down off the dais. He waves his hand to the guard, gesturing for him to release Quentin. “What are you doing here, Q?”

“Sorry,” Fen interrupts, “Who’s this?”

“The Royal Librarian,” Margo supplies, in a tone which makes the position sound unnecessarily salacious.

“I’ve come to talk to you,” Quentin says to Eliot, only to Eliot, as if it were only the two of them in the world. “I’m sorry about last night, I know I was drunk, but I meant it, all of it.”

He takes a deep breath, and it takes all of Eliot’s strength not to rush over to him, to hold him. He’s saying all the things Eliot would be too cowardly to say, surrounded by armed guards in a room he’s not even supposed to be in. It’s the kind of bravery Eliot’s only ever dreamed of.

Quentin continues, softly, earnestly. “I don’t want you to marry her, Eliot. I know it’s not up to me, and I know I’m a nobody, but–”

“You’re not a nobody,” Eliot insists, surprised at the sound of his own voice and its ferocity. But he means it. “And I’m not going to marry her,” he adds.

“Oh?” asks Fen.

“Really?” asks Margo.

Eliot turns back and nods to her. “Yes, really,” he says. “You were right, Bambi. And I’m sorry, Queen Fen.”

“You know what this means?” she asks, brows furrowed. She doesn’t look mad; she just looks worried.

Eliot nods. “But I’d like to propose a compromise. I can’t marry you, but my father couldn’t bear it to see a foreigner rule Fillory. And he’s really not getting anything else he wanted from me, so I might as well give him this.”

Fen leans forward. “Give him what?”

“A substitute,” Eliot proposes. “My advisor does have royal blood, somewhere along the line. And she’s much more qualified to rule a kingdom.”

“Hold up,” Margo says. “You’re giving your crown to me?”

“If you’ll take it, King Bambi. You deserve it.”

“King Margo,” she tries, a sly smile spreading across her face. “I like the sound of that. What do you think, Queen Fen?”

Fen blushes. “I think we should talk in private,” she says.

“Eliot,” says Quentin, stepping forward. There’s a tremble in his voice that wasn’t there before. “You’re abdicating?”

“Think I just did, yeah,” says Eliot.

“Because of me?”

Eliot laughs. “Did you really just storm in here, make a big romantic declaration, and then ask me that?”

Quentin reddens. “I just– I wasn’t-”

“It’s fine,” Eliot reassures him. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. I didn’t even want to be king, really. I don’t think I’d be a good one anyway.”

“But now what?”

Eliot shrugs. “Maybe Margo will need an advisor of her own. Can’t imagine why, but I’ll offer.”

“And, uh,” Quentin fidgets, clears his throat nervously. “I mean, about us...”

“Well, I’m not royal anymore, so I can’t really tell you what to do,” Eliot says. “But I think you should kiss me. If you want.”

Quentin grins, bright as the sun, and does just that.

“This is stupid,” Quentin says. “Can I just–”

“Not yet,” Eliot chastens. “You’ll ruin the surprise. Just trust me.” He steers him into place, hands held securely over Quentin’s eyes.

“We’ve stopped,” Quentin observes. “Are we here? Can I look now?”

Eliot clicks his tongue. “You have no sense of drama. Fine.”

He removes his hands with a flourish. Quentin blinks.

“What is this?”

“I think it used to be the groundskeeper’s quarters? I don’t know. No one’s used it in years, it was just rotting away here. Luckily I have a bit of an in with the king and queen so I got it fixed up and…” Eliot gestures.

He’s quite proud of this. A year ago it was just a crumbling wreck and now it’s a rather splendid little cottage, suitably cozy but overly quaint. It’s still covered in vines but they’re flowering now. They haven’t gone inside yet, but Eliot had all his favorite pieces from the palace brought in to furnish it (or at least, everything that would fit). Like everything Eliot actually puts effort into, it is (in his opinion, at least) exquisitely tasteful.

But Quentin hasn’t said anything.

“Do you like it?” Eliot asks. Not nervously. He used to be a prince, he almost was a king, why should he be nervous about a little house? (He’s very nervous about this little house.)

“What is this?” Quentin repeats.

“It’s yours,” Eliot says. “Or, ours. If you want it, that is.”

Quentin turns to him. “Eliot,” he says softly, so gently, “are you asking me to move in with you?”

“No. I mean, yes. Duh. Obviously that. But no. I’m asking you to marry me.”

Quentin’s jaw drops a little bit. “Marry you? Are you sure?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“Yes you do, all the time.”

“Look,” Eliot explains. “I’m very happy for Margo and Fen, and I certainly don’t regret my decisions in that regard, but I _did _very much want a wedding, and now I’d like it with you, since I was planning to spend my life with you anyway. When you’re not royal anymore people stop throwing parties for you, so I thought, I might as well throw my own party, and what better occasion for booze and revelry than-”

Quentin leans up and interrupts him with a long kiss. “I love you,” he says. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

“Oh,” Eliot says. “Okay. Good.”

And he kisses Quentin, and he is home.

**Author's Note:**

> hmm this got a little bit out of hand
> 
> title from Never Ending Circles by CHVRCHES


End file.
